A Manifesto for Critical‐Feminist Science Education

Bibliographic Data

ID21392779
AuthorsKaterina Pia Günter (0000-0002-8520-2642, Umeå universitet | Ubmeje Universitiähta Umeå Sweden, corresponding author), Rie Hjørnegaard Malm (0000-0002-4323-3491, Københavns Universitet Copenhagen Denmark), Sarah El Halwany (0000-0002-5438-5300, Université de l'Ontario français Toronto Ontario Canada), Elena Vasiliou (0000-0002-2498-9189, University of Warwick Coventry UK), Aswathy Raveendran (0000-0002-6164-9423, Homi Bhabha Centre for Science Education), Tatiane Russo-Tait (0000-0002-2606-2061, University of Georgia Athens Georgia USA, corresponding author), Tolbert (0000-0001-5246-7110, Monash University Melbourne Victoria Australia)
Year2026
Volume110
Issue3
Pages717-725
Publication date2026-05-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueScience Education (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0036-8326 • E-ISSN: 1098-237X
PublisherWiley (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1002/sce.70016
OpenAlexW4414252911
LanguageEN
Citations received2
References cited73

Feminist science education is not a new endeavor but part of a long‐standing intergenerational struggle against exclusion, marginalization, and epistemic violence within science and science education institutions and practices. Despite decades of critical feminist scholarship and activism, science and science education continue to operate through patriarchal, colonial, and neoliberal structures that uphold cisheteronormativity, racism, and ableism, often under the guise of objectivity, neutrality, or equity. This special theme calls for a radical reimagining of science education through feminist praxis that is intersectional, transdisciplinary, and transnational. Drawing on foundational feminist scholars and feminist and critical science education researchers, we center practices grounded in care, collectivity, community, relations, dissensual engagement, and the co‐construction of knowledge that challenges dominant norms. We advocate for science education that foregrounds relational ethics, joy, and critical consciousness, and that supports students and educators in becoming agents of collective social transformation. This theme emerges from a geographically and generationally diverse, interdisciplinary community of feminist scholars committed to confronting the limitations of diversity rhetoric and pushing beyond representational politics. We critique extractive and damage‐based research paradigms and instead invite contributions that make visible “little justices,” resist neoliberal resilience discourses, and imagine feminist kin‐making across borders. We aim to create brave, caring spaces that resist censorship and silencing, especially of scholars whose work engages explicitly with questions of power and oppression. In doing so, we continue the legacy of feminist science education as a field that not only questions how science is taught and by whom, but that redefines what science education can be—politically, pedagogically, and imaginatively. Inspired by bell hook's thoughts, this special theme is an invitation to rethink how we think, teach, write, and speak about science and science education, and to collaboratively construct more just and inclusive futures in and through science

Feminism · Feminist philosophy · Higher education · Manifesto · Praxis · Scholarship · Science education · Science studies · Science, technology, society and environment education · Social science education · Adult and Continuing Education Topics · Career Development and Diversity

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